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O VERVIEW OF PAPER Main stages research to publication The Typical Outline for an Empirical Paper Writing English Properly Where to publish? Journal Impact Factors Submitting to journals Acceptance or Rejection? Peer Review

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“Introduction” Not a literature review. It may cite things that motivate, but should never review them. Is a statement of the problem, its background and importance. “Theory” To show something new, not to show you can repeat others. To derive or motivate your empirical work To clarify your idea in readers’ minds

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“Data” Longer if novel; shorter if data are well known Descriptive statistics—often can make main point here. “Results” The results must be discussed at length Stress/discuss the original; spend no time on standard results. Results must be linked to theoretical derivation—and vice-versa

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“Tests and implications” Various tests for robustness of results—but only major ones. Minor checks go in footnotes. Uses of the results— explicit applications to problems

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“Conclusions/implications” NOT just a repeat of what you did. That should be ≤ 2 paragraphs of a conclusion that is at least 3 paragraphs. Should put in context of literature—what you have added. Should say something about where one might go— but should be general; shouldn’t be modifications of yours. Policy implications ONLY if they are novel, relevant.

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“Abstract” 1. Write this AFTER the paper is drafted. 2. Should NOT be a paragraph from intro or conclusion 3. Should summarize what you did, both theoretical (if any), and empirical (including data used). Should entice the reader. 4. Stick to any space limitations

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W RITING E NGLISH P ROPERLY Why this matters? Readers’ time is scarce Readers infer substantive carelessness from written carelessness English is easy at one level, very difficult at another; and it can be bad at several levels Lowest level—so bad that reader cannot infer what you are doing. Reader infers you do not know either. Next level—repeated subject-verb disagreements, incorrect pluralization and possessives, etc. Next level Left-out articles—a common problem for Asian-language speakers, Russians. Incorrect prepositions. Incorrect gerunds and participial phrases

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S OLVING E NGLISH P ROBLEMS What to do about the writing? Get a native English speaker to read it carefully for you. Always read word-for-word before sending it off. Have your spouse/friend read it—if he/she can’t understand intro/concls, probably unclear. Publicity as an improving device Use your PR office This helps your University. Your Dean loves it. Enhances your usefulness to society Provides a good check on your work—can you explain it to the press layperson?

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W HERE TO PUBLISH ?

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P UBLISHING STRATEGIES 'Shot gun' or 'sniper'? i.e. large number of papers but lower quality (easier) journals? OR taking far longer, fewer paper to carefully target highest ranking journals ​ ? Both strategies have costs/benefits Shot gun: benefits - you get the numbers, a mass of publications (useful for some promotion panels/external funders who don't know about journal quality!). You start to get your name known.

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P UBLISHING STRATEGIES Benefits: easier journals to get into so often less work per paper. Some of lowest journals are desperate for papers! BUT Shot gun: costs – you are not hitting the best journals. Your international peers know this. Lowest ranked journals can be seen as waste of time by govt research committees etc. Since it is so easy: can feel less rewarding

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P UBLISHING STRATEGIES Sniper: benefits – publication in the most prestigious journals can open doors for funding, promotion. You are in company of top international academics in your field: it shows your quality. Top journals are often more referred to by peers, researchers etc since better circulation internationally

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P UBLISHING STRATEGIES Benefits – if the top journals reject your paper you can use the referees' comments & submit to lower ranked journal. The reverse doesn't work! Personally can be very rewarding & hugely satisfying to publish your work in the best journals

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P UBLISHING STRATEGIES Sniper: costs – slow & difficult process (top journals have extremely high rejection rates) so papers need to be best you can get them to have any chance Fewer papers produced in same time you could have turned out more papers for low rank journals (can be a problem for promotion boards)

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W HAT IS J OURNAL I MPACT F ACTORS AND

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J OURNAL I MPACT F ACTORS : W HY ? W HERE ? W HAT ? Why? Evaluate the scholarly worth of a journal Rank journals within a discipline Help you decide where to publish your article for maximum impact Evaluation for promotion / tenure / grants, or in some countries, even government funding of an institution Frequently used as an evaluation source by librarians during journal cancellations or new purchases

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J OURNAL I MPACT F ACTORS : W HY ? W HERE ? W HAT ? What is the Journal Impact Factor? How is it calculated? E.g., the 2009 Impact factor for the journal Cell = Number of times articles or other items published in Cell during 2007 & 2008 were cited in indexed journals* during 2009 –––––––––-––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Number of “citable” articles** published in Cell in 2007 & 2008 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Only references in articles within the ~13,000 journals indexed in Web of Science are counted; does not include citations that may cite the articles in Cell from book chapters, proceedings, or other journals that are not indexed in Web of Science * * Citable articles are just research articles and reviews – not news articles, commentary, etc.

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C RITICISMS OF J OURNAL I MPACT F ACTORS … Only a limited subset of journals is indexed by ISI Biased toward English-language journals Short (two year) snapshot of journal Includes self-citations, that is articles in which the article cites other papers in the same journal Only includes “citable” articles in the denominator of the equation, i.e., articles and reviews It is expensive to subscribe to the JCR

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P ERSISTENCE IS A V IRTUE If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again Revise, but don’t simply resubmit Most manuscripts submitted for publication in refereed journals get rejected at one time or another before achieving publication

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I MPROVING THE O DDS OF A CCEPTANCE Maintain a stock of 5 or 6 papers under review at all time Diversify your research as well as your publication portfolio Balance between quality and quantity of publications

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I MPROVING THE O DDS OF A CCEPTANCE If you have 2 good ideas about a topic, develop them into 2 manuscripts instead of putting them into one paper The longer a manuscript, the more likely that referees will either misunderstand it or find something wrong with your reasoning or interpretation of results

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T HE R IGHT O UTLET Research and select a journal that best fits your research and intended audience before submitting a manuscript Match your manuscript with the scope of the target journal and improve on presentation, which can easily increase your odds of acceptance by 20%

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P EER R EVIEW : A T RUST Journals provide a forum to: communicate new findings disseminate new knowledge to a wide audience inform public policy Peer review ensures scientific quality of publications by asking other scholars to assess the value and merit of the research and the accuracy of its results